Unthinkable
by Tonkswyrda
Summary: If Scabior wants to join the ranks of the death eaters and earn the mark, there's something he'll have to do first. he has to kill her. but can he kill the only person he ever gave his heart to?


It's a dark night, and the fog is too thick to be natural. Even though he's aware that it is Dementor fog, Scabior is glad for the extra protection. This way, he doesn't have to see her.

He knows this is better than snatching. A thousand times better. To actually be in the dark lords circle, to bear his mark… it's what he's wanted since the Dark Lord's return. He'll miss it, true- running after mudbloods and convicts and pretty girls in the dark… but it'll be better.

He just wishes she wasn't the price he would have to pay. Anything else and he would have done so gladly- but killing her?

It was time to put his personal feeling aside and get the job done. Surely it was what she was doing right now, ahead of him in the fog.

Tonks is dressed in black, blending into the night. The fog envelopes her completely. There is no way her prey- a high ranking ministry official- could see her tonight. Despite this, she is uneasy. She doesn't know what it is, but she almost gets the feeling that he knows she's there. She has no idea how- she is completely invisible- but his footsteps are too measured, too precise, to be natural. She is sure that his loud steps are for her own benefit.

She hates that she has to do this- follow people who she once would have smiled at, made conversation with- they're not friends, but she never wanted to do this. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and this is the job the order assigned her with. Easy enough, low key, and it's extremely unlikely there'll be any open dueling, let alone contact at all. And while she's thinking of getting information and being useful, everyone else is analyzing how much work and stress she should take on in her present condition. Sighing a little louder than she meant to, Tonks rests her free hand- the one not gripped tightly around her wand- on her stomach. The bump is hardly there, she doesn't know what anyone is making a fuss about. It's ridiculous.

But if they think it's going to stop her from being any sort of asset to the order at all, then she'll prove them wrong.

She can see the officials outline in the fog, which seems to be getting thinner. She could go faster, catch him by surprise and stun him- but the likelihood of her reaching him without being able to see her feet and without tripping… she can't take this risk, as much as it annoys her. She can't afford to face plant into concrete anymore. If only she weren't so alone, this would be so much easier. If only Remus-

No.

She cuts herself off. She has to concentrate, not get lost in thoughts that will only make her want to stop and cry.

Taking a deep breath, she slinks forward into the dark. It never occurs to her that her feeling of unease could be caused by someone following her.

Her outline is dark against the fog. He could be a coward and kill her from here- but what would that prove? What would that earn him? If he cant look someone in the eyes while he kills them, why bother applying to be a Death Eater?

Scabior knows he'll have to face her. He doesn't want to- she's changed so much from the loquacious, beautiful, bubbly girl he met at Hogwarts. She was cheeky then, but she didn't want to take sides in a war like this. She'd seen what it did to people. She'd told him herself.

He was thirteen when they first met. A true Slytherin, trying desperately to hide his muggle born father, his unpleasant secret from those he needed to be his friends. Thirteen and he couldn't ever be himself around anyone. He never really was himself around her either. He just switched to a lighter mask.

He had run into an empty classroom (or what he had judged to be an empty classroom) to escape the boys in his year- all they talked about was girls and sex and being pureblood, and he needed to escape. The classroom however, was already occupied.

She was sitting in a corner, knees curled up, rolling an apple between her hands. Her dark eyes were red and puffy, and he knew she'd been crying. He knew why, too. He was on the edge of a group that often had a go at her for being related to Sirius Black. (A bit rich of them, in his opinion, considering they all had equally horrible relations.) he knew she hated the constant taunting, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had expected the fact that she was a pretty girl to make them ease off, but it only intensified their teasing.

"You're the Black girl," he blurted suddenly and stupidly.

She looked up at him from under her lashes, eyes full of rage with hair a bristling red. The apple rolled out of her hands, quickly replaced by her wand.

"Is that a problem?" she asked venomously, eyebrows raised. One wrong word here would see him in the hospital wing for a week. He quickly shook his head.

"No! no. I was just… I was just saying. Scabior. By the way." He stepped forward, holding out his hand. She eyed it suspiciously. After a pause, she stood, brushed off her skirt, and shook it.

"Tonks." She said cooly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I was supposed to be writing a potions essay." She brushed past him, and his breath caught in his throat.

"I can help! If you want…"

She just stood there, taking in his plaid trousers and shirt and thick black boots, before gesturing out the door with her head. "Come on then."

Then, he'd had no idea why he'd been so keen to help her. Looking back, it was because they'd both been outcasts- in his view anyway. She was popular enough with her own crowd, and her older Quidditch star boyfriend. He was nothing. But his crowd teased her as much as they ignored him. They could be strong against them together.

The fog is moving again, thinning out, so he slows down, taking refuge under the willow trees lining the street. Her figure still looms ahead, easily within view. He wishes he never let her out of his sight,during school. He only knew about half the hours she spent crying over Sirius, and the relentless teasing, in the girls bathroom. She always had such a hard exterior; she'd been hard to break.

In the end, it had been Charlie Weasley who'd done the majority of the breaking for him.

She'd turned up at their table in the library late, and had slammed her books down. Her eyes weren't red; she hadn't been crying. But her face had a vacant expression, and it worried him.

"Are you alright?"

She was too busy pulling quills and parchment out of her bag to respond initially, but she shook her head. He frowned.

"What is it?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She flipped her transfiguration text book open, pulling a half completed essay towards her.

"Tonks." His hand rested on her fist, and she looked up at him warily. "You know you can tell me anything, don't you?"

She nodded, sighing, and before he knew it, was spilling about Charlie breaking up with her to go to Romania to study dragons, and knowing that they could never keep a long distance relationship working. Even though they were only friends, study buddies, her hand had turned to clasp his, and she hadn't let go until they left for dinner.

Scabior wondered if her hand was still as small and soft as he remembered. He'd seen numerous pretty girls since then, but none of them had skin as soft and milky as hers had been that afternoon.

Once Charlie was out of the picture, he had quickly grown on her.

Their first kiss had been rough, and cold. It was three years since they'd met, but somehow he'd known this was where he'd always wanted it to go. She had been less sure, but trails of kisses in dark, secluded corners had soon changed that.

They fought too much in their seventh year. Over his choice of friends, mostly. One unintended comment in a burst of anger about her using him as protection against all the threats she was getting now for her murdering relations ensured she never spoke to him again.

He missed her. When she's walked away, she'd taken something with her. He tried to fill it. Pretty girl after pretty girl, but they were never enough. None of them came close to her. Not to her smell, her laugh, her beauty, her hair, her humour, her anger. There just wasn't another Nymphadora Tonks to be found anywhere.

And now, to ensure that he lives, to ensure that he has power, he has to kill the one person who's ever meant anything to him. Did they know this when they assigned it to him? How could they have?

How could he have accepted?

Standing still for a moment, he took a deep breath. If he failed, he would be tortured and ridiculed beyond belief. He had to detach himself. She was just another auror, another Order member. She wasn't a past lover, a friend.

She was going to die.

The least he could do was make it quick. Taking another breath, he began to run towards her silhouette.

The footsteps behind her confused her momentarily. The official was in front of her- not behind! She hadn't somehow managed to pass him in the fog, had she?

Someone hit her then, ran full into her, and it definitely wasn't the ministry official.

Yelling, she was pulled to the ground and pinned against the base of a willow tree. She struggled, panicking. This was supposed to be a low risk situation!

Her wand was pulled out of her hand, but not before she had raked her attackers face with her nails. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, and what she saw made her freeze.

"Scabior?" she breathed.

He wouldn't look at her face. No need to make things harder than they already were. Instead he was starring at her hands, which were grasped tightly in his own. His mouth had fallen open slightly at the sight of the gold band on her left hand.

"Nymph... you're... you're..."

"Married?" she finished his question with a weak smile. "Yeah. Now would you mind moving your knee?"

He glanced at his knee, lodged in her stomach, and quickly pulled it back. She let out a small sigh of relief.

"You've changed." She whispered after a pause. He snapped.

"I've changed? Look at you! You're with them- what happened to not taking sides? And you're married to that filthy half breed..." he remembered Bellatrix mentioning that, but faltered under her suddenly murderous glare.

"Get off me." She said firmly.

He didn't move. She shoved him, but stopped suddenly, her hand going automatically to her belly as her face whitened in pain. The moment passed quickly, but he knew enough now to put two and two together. He scrambled off, both wands pointed at her throat.

"You're... with that...thing..."

She stood, still looking venomous. "You mean I'm pregnant with a werwolf's child? Yes, I am! Bet you're wishing it was yours right about now."

The wands dropped slightly. "Maybe I do." Scabior paused. "But I still have to kill you."

She didn't move, apart from shaking her head. "You cant. You would have done it already if you were going to."

He shook his head, lifting the wands.

"I have to."

She took a step forward this time. "You don't. We can help you. Hide you." her eyes were wide, begging him to listen. Begging him not to hurt her, or her half-breed baby.

"You cant hide me from that though," he said, gesturing to her stomach. She looked truly sorry.

"You could've apologized. Then maybe I wouldn't have to. You might be different."

"I wouldn't have changed. And neither would you." He sighed, looking away for a second.

"Goodbye, Beautiful."

She had already launched herself forward, ripping her wand from his hand. He grabbed her by her cloak, but within seconds he was left alone, holding onto a piece of her as she apparated to god knows where.

He had failed. But for now at least, she was safe.

His safety however, was more disputable. With this thought in mind, he ran, deciding that maybe snatching was the best path for him after all.


End file.
